Netflix is acquiring Estonian startup Ready Player Me, a company creating “cross-game avatar tech” that allows players to bring their digital personas with them to different games, the company’s CEO Timmu Tõke shared in a LinkedIn post. The acquisition is part of Netflix’s new games strategy, which puts an emphasis on approachable multiplayer titles and adaptations of the streaming service’s IP.
Ready Player Me’s team of around 20 employees will be incorporated into Netflix’s staff, TechCrunch writes, though Tõke is the only one of the startup’s four founders who will continue on after the acquisition. Neither company has shared when the avatar tech will be incorporated into Netflix’s games or what games will support the feature when they do.
Besides designing its avatar system to be easy for developers to implement in their games, Ready Player Me’s big pitch for their system is using AI to automatically redesign avatars for different games’ art styles and “automatically fit assets to any avatar rig or topology without manual work.”
Netflix has taken multiple different approaches to games in the last few years, but lately, the company has actively retreated from AAA development and its more ambitious projects. Other than the premiere of its take on HQ Trivia, Netflix’s last few game announcements of 2025 were focused on a collection of streamable party games, and a partnership with FIFA to release a new soccer sim in 2026. All of those projects could support avatars in one form or another, now Netflix just needs to decide how.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/netflix-is-acquiring-game-avatar-maker-ready-player-me-204443001.html?src=rss
